


Apples and Straw

by mallardeer



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-10 23:56:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12310572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mallardeer/pseuds/mallardeer
Summary: It's fall, so Kara drags Lena and James on a festive excursion. Flufftastic.





	Apples and Straw

The first weekend in October is cold—or cold for National City anyway. She wakes up on Saturday while Kara and James are still asleep, hating to leave their warm bed, but needing to run through some reports before Kara proposes some seasonal activity they must all do that day.

A sweatshirt of James’s is hanging on the hook on the bathroom door, so she wraps that around herself as she pads across the hall to the room that’s become their office. It smells like him, like cologne and fabric softener and the exhaust of the city. She revels in its warmth, in its weight, and it makes it a little easier to be out of bed. 

James wakes up next, to a mouthful of blonde hair, and he smiles and kisses Kara before carefully slipping out of bed. He’s not surprised to find that Lena’s up already—or at that his sweatshirt is missing from the bathroom door. When he finds her in the office, wrapped up in it like a little kid wearing Dad’s clothes, he rests against the door frame and smiles. 

“Good morning,” he yawns, and she looks up at him with a soft smile—her at home smile, the one that only he and Kara ever see.  
  
“Morning,” she says. “You’re not going running?”  
  
“Not if you’re not,” he says, coming to sit on the floor beside her chair. He draws his knees up to his chest and rests his head against her hip. 

She bends to kiss the crown of his head, and he sighs happily. This is something he’s picked up from Kara, she thinks, coming to sit beside her to look for affection. It is almost unbearably sweet. 

“Too cold this morning,” she murmurs, pulling his sweatshirt around her. “Plus, I figured Kara would want to do something festive, and I have to get this stuff done first.”  
  
“Festive?” James laughs. “Like what? Apple picking?”  
  
“Mmm, or pumpkin carving.”  
  
“Pumpkin carving! I haven’t carved a jack o’ lantern since I was nine years old.”  
  
“Doesn’t that sound like something Kara would want to do?” Lena asks, frowning slightly, and James nods thoughtfully. 

“Yes, it certainly does.”

They lapse into comfortable silence, as Lena taps away at her keyboard, and James closes his eyes, head heavy against the curve of her hip. She stretches, runs her hand absently over his head, murmurs that his stubble is getting sharp. “I’ll call my barber,” he yawns with a smirk. 

He dozes off, there on the floor, and Lena leaves one hand resting on his shoulder while she runs through a series of emails. It’s nice, this quiet time in the early morning with just James, before whirlwind of activity Kara wakes up. 

Eventually, Lena smells coffee, and her head snaps up. James makes a noise of protest, but doesn’t move. “Kara?” Lena calls, and then there she is in the doorway, holding two steaming mugs. 

“Good morning,” Kara says brightly, kissing her as she hands over the coffee.  
  
“When did you get up? I’ve never known you to be quiet,” James says, accepting his own mug.  
  
“Well, I peeked in to see you two nerds at Lena’s desk, and you were very cute, so I figured you deserved some coffee,” Kara says, pleased with herself. “And hey. I can be very stealthy.”  
  
“Mmm, says the girl who can’t find her way to bed after she gets back from world-saving,” Lena says archly, and Kara huffs.  
  
Lena puts away her laptop and gets to her feet, kissing Kara’s cheek as she heads back to the bedroom. “I bought a new bed frame, didn’t I?” Kara reminds her, and James chuckles, pulling an arm around her waist.  
  
“Don’t let her rile you up this early in the morning,” he says fondly, and Kara kisses his chin.  
  
“Well? What autumnal activity do you have planned for us today, Kara?” Lena asks, reappearing in the hallway sans James’s sweatshirt.  
  
“Oh! I found this place to go apple picking. And get a pumpkin,” Kara says eagerly. “Wait. How did you—”  
  
“It’s October. It’s below sixty degrees. You want to do something festive,” Lena says knowingly, and Kara rewards her with a full-blown grin.  
  
“I enjoy when you pay attention to my rants, Lee,” she laughs. “Okay, everybody, get dressed. They’re supposed to have really good cider donuts at this place.”

James pulls on a green plaid shirt and scrounges jeans from the bottom of the closet. (Lena is forever nagging him to hang up his clothes; he makes an effort once a week, maybe.) She rolls her eyes at him as she watches him hop into his pants, so he grins broadly in response. “You’re lucky I love you, James Olsen,” she says, standing on her toes to kiss him.

“Don’t I know it,” he says, and winks over her head at Kara, who pulls them both into her arms.

If it weren’t such a beautiful day, Lena would argue for staying inside and doing just this—lounging away in Kara’s arms. But she loves making Kara happy, so she dresses in her own pair of dark jeans and a blue sweater, while Kara hums and buttons up a blue and red plaid shirt. “A little obvious, Supergirl?” she suggests, lightly teasing, and Kara scowls.  
  
“They’re good colors. Also, now we match!” she says, and Lena shakes her head. 

James is waiting for them in the kitchen, drinking his second cup of coffee and scrolling through his phone. “Donuts is all you want for breakfast, K?” he asks.  
  
“Well, no. Can you find a diner to stop at on the way to the farm?” she asks.  
  
“James is driving. I’ll find the diner,” Lena promises. “Ready?”  
  
“Ready,” Kara affirms, and marches toward the elevator.  
  
“Happy to drive, Lee, but...”  
  
“I know. But I didn’t think it would be very kind to drug her,” Lena sighs, and they laugh and follow Kara into the elevator.  
  
“I heard that. I am much better at being a passenger than you think I am,” she says, jutting her chin out defiantly. 

Five minutes into the drive, Kara is already whining in the backseat. “Whaaaat if I just flew the whole car to within a mile of the farm?” she asks, and James snorts. 

“Babe, we’ll be there in twenty minutes.”  
  
“You said that twenty minutes ago!”

“It was two minutes ago, Kara,” Lena corrects, and Kara heaves a sigh, but does not argue.

“Also, this was your idea,” James adds, not exactly helpfully, and Kara huffs. 

Lena quirks an eyebrow at James, and he shoots her a sly smile. Shaking her head, she reaches over for his hand. He grabs hers up and kisses her fingers. “Thanks for not being the crazy one, Lee,” he stages whispers, and she tries to suppress a laugh.  
  
“I’m not dignifying that with a response,” Kara says haughtily.  
  
\--

Breakfast at a greasy diner mollifies her easily, as she puts away a stack of pancakes as tall as Lena and probably about half the bacon in the place. “You are an expensive date,” Lena says, kissing her head.  
  
“Yes, yes. I can pay for my own food,” Kara says, rolling her eyes.  
  
“You can buy the apples,” Lena says, flitting to the register before Kara thinks to try to stop her. 

She scowls across the table at James, who just shrugs. “Let Lex Luthor’s money pay for your pancakes, Kara,” he says, and she just shakes her head. 

The farm is twenty minutes further down the road, but Kara manages to only complain once. 

As soon as they pull into the dirt parking lot, she launches out of the car, bounding up to the storefront to inquire about apple picking. “She made it,” Lena remarks, waiting as James locks up the car.  
  
“And so did we,” he jokes, taking her hand.  
  
By the time they join Kara, she’s already holding three bags, two of which she thrusts at them. “Come on! He gave me a map of all the different varieties,” she says, and eagerly rushes off to the orchard.  
  
“Well. She has a map,” Lena says, and James grins, tugging her along as they hurry after their very enthusiastic partner. 

Kara is already halfway down a line of macintoshes before they can catch up with her. James derides macintoshes as being too mushy, but Kara insists they taste exactly like fall, and Lena butts up between them, kissing Kara and tweaking James’s arm. “We have three bags,” she points out, and helps Kara begin to fill hers. 

James happily joins them, and in a few minutes they have a full bag of perfectly red and green macintosh apples. Kara happily munches on one as she leads the way to James’s preferred apple, the Fuji. 

The trees are somewhat taller here, so James puts Lena on his shoulders and points her in the direction of a likely branch. She shrieks in surprise, but James is solid beneath her, and Kara would never let her come to any injury anyway. “You’re ridiculous,” she tells him, but gamely rains apples into his bag for him. 

“You’re a hero, Lee,” he teases, reaching up for his own apple, while he holds her steady with one arm. 

Kara flits from tree to tree, making friends with the families with young kids, and ends up with two toddlers on her shoulders, while she laughs with their parents. James sets Lena on her feet, and they watch Kara light up the entire orchard. “You ever think this is her real super power?” James murmurs.

“All the time,” Lena replies, leaning against him. 

“Hey! Are you guys done already?” Kara asks, spotting them, and they smile and go to join her. 

James helps Kara return her new friends to their parents, and Kara takes Lena’s hand. 

“Did you fill up Jimmy’s bag?” she asks, grinning, and Lena nods.

“All right, Lena’s turn to pick the apples,” James says, and Lena laughs a little sheepishly. 

“I like honey crisp,” she says. 

Kara leads the way across the rows to the honey crisp trees, and James grabs Lena’s hips. “Shoulders?” he offers, picking out a likely tree, while Kara furtively scrambles up the one next to it. (There are “no climbing” signs all over the place, but that hasn’t seemed to stop anyone.)

“No, thank you,” she laughs, hipchecking him as she moves closer to the trunk to get at the bright fruit. “Kara,” she calls, only half-heartedly scolding, and Kara is at her side in a flash, arms laden with apples.  
  
“Hi, I did not climb that tree, nope,” Kara says, putting her haul into the bag. “I’m just very good at finding the best apples.” She kisses Lena and bounds away, managing to befriend another toddler on her travels.  
  
James and Lena follow her with their bags, steadying filling up the last one, smiling and nodding at all of Kara’s new friends. “How does she do that, though?” Lena asks. “Whenever I get handed a baby, it starts crying.”  
  
“When do you get handed babies?” James laughs, and Lena shrugs.  
  
“Strange social situations. I try to be obliging to help their mothers, but… Always, they start shrieking.”

“Babies are unpredictable, babe. And Kara is…the most personable woman on the planet.”

“Are you saying I’m not personable?” Lena demands, bumping his arm, and he stutters for a minute, but then joins in her laughter.  
  
“Okay, I think we have enough apples,” Kara decides, surveying their bulging bags. “Should we take them to the car and then pick out pumpkins?”  
  
“Pumpkins? How many do we need?” Lena asks.  
  
“Well, one for each of us!” Kara says happily, picking up all three bags.  
  
“Babe,” James cautions, and she winces, chagrined.  
  
“These are heavier than I thought,” she playacts, and Lena rolls her eyes, hefting one of the bags into her arms as James takes the third.  
  
“You’re very subtle,” she whispers, and Kara sighs, but comes around quickly when Lena smacks a kiss against her cheek. 

Once the apples are paid for and settled in the trunk, Kara leaps onto James’s back and directs him toward the pumpkin patch. She and James spend an age trying to select the orangest, roundest pumpkins. Lena finds a tall almost yellow one with a smooth enough face and claims it, deciding to perch on a hay bale to watch them exclaim at each other from across the rows of pumpkins. 

Finally, they each select one—both huge and round and Halloween orange—lugging them proudly over to Lena. Kara’s face falls in comical dismay when she sees Lena’s pumpkin, but James elbows her. “There’s no accounting for taste,” he says, smiling slyly when Lena’s eyes turn hard. 

“James,” Kara laughs, and presses a soothing kiss to Lena’s temple.  
  
They carry their pumpkins up to be weighed and paid for, and then Kara leads them into the store for cider donuts, a gallon of cider, and several jars of preserves. “Are you really going to eat those?” Lena asks, and Kara nods resolutely.  
  
“Peanut butter and fig jam sandwiches for lunch!” James announces, and they laugh at each other as Kara drops her purchases at the register.  
  
“Oooh, caramel apples. Do you guys want one?” she asks, spotting a display.  
  
James and Lena both decline, but Kara buys three anyway and marches proudly out to the car with her farm stand finds.

When they get home, they’re only too happy to let Kara carry everything up to the apartment since there are no gawkers in the garage or lobby. Lena feels pleasantly tired as she rests against James in the elevator, pumpkins at their feet. 

They manage to persuade Kara to hold off on carving them until tomorrow, and they all fall into a heap on the couch. Kara smells like apples and straw, and Lena wants to burrow into her, breathe her in, never leave her arms. 

“Thank you for accompanying me on my autumn activity,” she says formally, and James kisses her, while Lena snuggles in closer. 

“Our pleasure,” James says, draping a blanket over Lena, who yawns and nods. 

“We’re a good family, huh?” Kara murmurs, stroking Lena’s hair, and never has it been so easy to agree with her.


End file.
